KIRKUS REVIEW

Combination how-to book and
guide to the secret pleasures of 21 nationwide highway motorcycle voyages, featuring plenty of craft-brewed beer.

More than a few folks would
call these voyages heaven, and Anderson, a veteran of such adventures, paints
the tours just so. The how-to element is like a checklist pilots go through
before lifting off: what will you need to meet the weather, what equipment will
prove invaluable, credit card scams to avoid, what’s in the medicine kit, when should
you go with a group, when should you go it alone, etc. The guidebook provides the big picture: which are
the best highways, what time of year is best to maximize visuals, etc. Decent color maps help, and photos will inspire your
own notions of what to bring, be it a fishing rod, climbing equipment, or
birder gear. The meat of the book is in its tips, which are plentiful and range
from biking etiquette to the best huckleberry patch in Oregon. The point of
these road trips is to get you into unique environments where you’ll become
intensely aware of your surroundings in landscapes so remote that the only
people you’ll see are the same ones over and over again amid back stretches of
the Natchez Trace and all those microbrews. “They offered up a shot of tequila
at one of the stops, but I advised them that I was good with the beer we had
for breakfast,” says Anderson, who never had more than one for breakfast.
Tongue in cheek, hopefully, Anderson writes, “You may consider carrying your
passport as an option but also be reminded of no weapons or firearms if you do
proceed north.” Though he claims to be not much of a writer, with the exception
of occasional clownishness—“I do leave tight pants to the ladies”—the
pleasingly unvarnished writing goes down smooth.

A fine trove of byways—Pig Trail, Twentymile Bottom—with
a guide who knows how to stop and smell the hops.

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